


reverse faults

by killaidanturner



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-01 07:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killaidanturner/pseuds/killaidanturner
Summary: Rhodey nods his head as he purses his lips together. “I know we’re all going through a lot right now but Tony has been missing, will be missing, and God only knows where he is or even if he’s still alive.” He doesn’t say it but they both know what he means. That Tony could be out in the universe, dust particles against the stars.





	1. Chapter 1

The heat of Wakanda is not the same feeling of the cold of Germany. Steve can’t help to make comparisons. His knees are pressed hard into the dirt, a numbing feeling that brings him to his childhood and Sunday pews with a rosary between his fingers. He can’t even begin to think of a prayer that would save them all now. His hair sticks to the back of his neck, the same way it used to during Brooklyn summers.

 

_Bucky, Bucky, Bucky._

 

 _Sam. Oh God, Sam._ Sam Wilson with his unwavering loyalty and his sharp tongue. Someone who had become a fixed point for Steve in the recent years. That's why he liked Sam, his loyalty reminded Steve of when he was younger, back before the serum and war, and decades of death. 

 

This is what defeat feels like, he thinks so himself as he looks at the gray lifeless form of Vision, parts of his head smashed in. It’s nothing like New York. Nothing like the first time that they went toe-to-toe with servants of Thanos. For the past six years Steve has held onto that feeling of victory. The one that he never had after World War II, the feeling that screams fireworks, the one that lets your shoulders slump for the first time since the whole thing started. The way that Bucky’s shoulders looked when they arrived in Wakanda, relaxed and like the weight of guilt was no longer such a heavy burden.

 

 _Wanda._ He thinks he should have asked her about Tony’s nightmare years ago, that during Ultron he should have said, tell me because Tony never will. Maybe then he would have understood, maybe then all of this could have been prevented. If this is the chaos Tony imagined then Steve can only wish that he had been by Tony’s side all along. Now it’s too late, swirls of red disappeared into the sky along with whatever secrets she held.

 

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose as a cry rips from Okoye. Her grief is that of family, of respect, but it comes out as a battle cry. It brings Steve back to reality.

 

The air feels different, magnetic. For a moment he thinks it's because of what just happened, that his friends who are now ash are still floating up into the sky. That may be part of it but he also realizes that it is radiating off of Thor. His eyes squint, as if it would help him see this unknown force better. Sparks of blue jump between Thor’s fingers. Steve thinks to himself that this is the only thing that can stop Thanos, a storm.

 

He half expects Thor to leap into the air, his axe swinging as he flies away without a word. It wouldn’t be the first time.

 

Thor opens his mouth to speak, but Steve can already tell the path that this is going down. He knows because it's the one that he has always taken himself down. The one that Tony also ventures down.

 

“Don’t. It’s not your-” Steve is trying to say fault, but he finds the word catching on his tongue, weighing him down. It’s not that he believes it, but to an extent he thinks it’s his fault too. “This was a collection of moments that led us here. It all started six years ago. If you want to blame yourself for not instantly killing him then maybe I should blame myself for the accords, for what happened with Ultron and after. There was only one person who did see this coming and none of us listened.”

 

There’s a part of Steve that wants to let the guilt weigh down on him, to sit down and say _what is the point of having the strength of Atlas, to hold the world on my shoulders, if I am not willing to do it._

 

Not for the first time in the past year does he regret laying down his shield.

 

Natasha bites her tongue. Political, always running scenarios in her head and trying to find the best outcome before she lays out a plan. There becomes a point where things are no longer about picking sides. Yes she was with Tony for the accords, it was the best option. In a way though, she understood to some extent Tony’s worries. The way that his chest was always missing the weight of metal in it, how his hands tremor the way the earth does. During the invasion she could see what he did, that this was endgame, a battle that they would most likely not win. It’s why after Tony’s words of double crossing she finally made the decision to leave the compound, to leave him. If they were going to lose she was going to lose on her own terms, with people who wouldn’t throw her past back at her no matter how hurt they were.

 

Steve’s soft clear eyes and his smile as he called her a friend was something she held close to her. Her way of showing it was going where Steve needed to go, to follow him from country to city to battle.

 

Nat wants to say if anyone knows regret, it’s her. That her life can be put together with string, and red, and moments of mistakes. If anyone is going to own up to this, it’s her.

 

“This is not the time or the place.” She leaves it at that. Her silence finalizing the discussion. She looks at Steve, her eyes hoping to convey to his a message of, we are filled with grief, we cannot afford a fight.

 

“Brother!” Shuri’s voice calls out, over their communication devices.

 

Okoye’s eyes close momentarily before she brings her wrist up to her lips. “He is,” an exhale as her lips tingle from the words she’s about to speak, “he is gone.”

 

The device goes quiet but Okoye cannot help but to breathe a sigh a relief in knowing that the future of Wakanda lives on in Shuri.

 

The only noise that remains are their ragged breaths and the crackling of electricity.

 

* * *

 

Steve runs out of room to count the number of lives lost on his hands.

 

* * *

 

“He’s injured. We have a chance to end this once and for all.”

 

“We have no idea where in the universe he is. Even if we did, even with his injury. I don’t know if defeating him would be possible.” Steve rests his hands on a table in Shuri’s lab, the parts of it that aren’t crumbling from destruction.

 

Natasha finds this version of Steve lost and without hope. She isn’t one to give false promises, to create hope where there is none but there's a tugging inside of her. “This can’t be it.” It doesn’t come out as matter of fact as she wants, it comes out quieter and leave it to Steve to be the only one to hear her.

 

He looks up from his strained position. “It is.” He tries to come across as reassuring but worries it sounds more condescending and harsh. He winces at his own words, unable to swallow them down.

 

“No, I know odds and yes they were stacked against us but I’ve seen the impossible. We all have. We’ve all seen dead men come back to life.” Her eyes glance briefly to Bruce’s, who is standing near the back of the room with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

 

“She is right. I do not think now is a time to give up.” Shuri’s voice is like a song breaking through their tension.

 

Thor’s face cracks into a smile for a brief moment as he thinks of all the times he’s seen Loki come back from what Thor thought was his death. He wants to believe the idea that they can still pull through this. His smile falters because he thinks this time he isn’t so sure that he can get his brother back.

 

“As much as I would like to believe that we can somehow reverse this curse or what have you, I don’t know if we can.” Thor grips his axe tighter and rolls his shoulders, “but I will help in whatever way I can on this quest.”

 

The feeling of hope rises again once more in Steve and he thinks to himself _, if I do this, I can’t waver._ He finds a new determination in himself along with a new level of understanding. He’s used the word stubborn more times than he cares to remember, but now he calls it determination as he takes on this new mantle. He’ll look for a way to fix this the same way that Tony was always trying to protect all of them.

 

* * *

 

“Did you mean it?” Rhodey asks as he comes up behind Steve.

 

“I’ve always meant everything I’ve said. Just doesn’t mean I still do.” Steve says as he turns around. Rhodey is looking at him as if he’s trying to decode what Steve just said. “But what exactly are you referring to?”

 

Rhodey lightly slaps Steve’s arm. “You don’t have to be so long winded all the time Cap. I was asking about what you said about Tony.” _About being earth’s best defender_.

 

“More than anything. He’s been a constant. All he ever wanted was to protect everyone.”

 

There's a side to Rhodey that wants to make a point, probably the side that argues with Tony all the time. “You know after what happened, he was so worried that he wasn’t going to be able to do it without you, that he created a reactor to wear on his clothes that could house the Iron Man suit? Here he was, a man who had been physically mutilated a decade ago, who was in constant pain after it happened, that Tony could only find comfort in putting the reactor back in whatever way he could?”

 

Steve has had the air knocked out of him more times than he can count in his life, but this one feels as if he won’t recover.

 

Rhodey nods his head as he purses his lips together. “I know we’re all going through a lot right now but Tony has been missing, will be missing, and God only knows where he is or even if he’s still alive.” He doesn’t say it but they both know what he means. That Tony could be out in the universe, dust particles against the stars.   
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

“You will be my greatest creation.” Nebula had heard that more times then she wanted to remember. Two-hundred and thirty seven to be exact. Thanos would lean over to her ear and whisper it to her with each new modification he came up with. No one knows it but her and Gamora, the lines etched into a metal plating on the inside of her arm.

 

“You can’t keep track this way.” Gamora would say to her, moments before Ronan would make them spar.

 

Nebula would never respond, instead she would close the plating on her arm before Gamora could see that there was a fresh tally mark for another modification.

 

At night when it was just the two of them, they would stare up at the ceiling. In the beginning, every night it came to them like clockwork, the small stifled cries of Gamora. Nebula would always let out a deep sigh before whispering the names of constellations as a distraction.

 

“Arcturus, Polaris, Vega.” She would count them down until Gamora would be whispering the names beside her with a mumbled “thank you,” before she would finally fall asleep.

 

“I don’t do it for you, I do it for myself.” Nebula would try to say with venom but her voice always betrayed her words.

 

* * *

 

“You will be my greatest creation.” The first time Thanos says this to Gamora she’s standing at his feet, a blade in her hand and a body on the floor next to her.

 

Nebular turns fast at the words, her body feels as if its going to short circuit.

 

It’s not that she’s jealous. It’s that she knows what comes with the territory of being a child of Thanos.

 

_Not he r, not her, not her._

 

* * *

 

They’re barely of age when Gamora’s kill count is higher than Nebula’s. It’s to the point where Nebula can barely look at her, red hair falling into her eyes with still hands behind her back as they listen to Ronan and Thanos talk.

 

It’s been years since Gamora has cried, since they’ve recited the names of stars together. Nebula knows that neither of them sleep well but she doesn’t know how to talk to Gamora. There are times where she desperately wants to pull her aside, to put her hands to her sister's shoulders, blue over green, and say to her, _“we can leave, we can leave here, Titan, leave this Galaxy and maybe he won’t find us._ ” She can never find the words to say out loud.

 

A theme of jealousy and sisters keeps playing out and Nebula goes along with it. She lets everyone think that she wants to be the one that Thanos is proud of, that she wants his approving gaze and to be the one at his side when he claims the infinity stones.

 

She doesn’t tell anyone that she only wants to be the focus of his attention so he will leave Gamora alone, that he will let her out of his sight long enough for her to escape, to leave Titan before she falls even more into his grasp.

 

* * *

 

Gamora is quiet, quieter than Nebula at times. She moves without sound and barely speaks. Her chin is always tilted upwards, and Nebula is starting to think that Thanos has finally gotten to her.

 

She does his bidding, bounty after bounty, body count rising. Each time she returns there is a smile on his face.

 

With each successful mission, Nebula is taken by Thanos once more.

 

* * *

 

“You were supposed to be my greatest creation.”

 

This time Nebula screams.

 

* * *

 

After so many years of Thanos whispering in their ears and his cruel hands changing them, Nebula thinks that he’s the only reason that she thought that she hated Gamora. Gamora with her always clear mind and how even through years of abuse she was always making a plan to take Thanos down. Maybe she was Thanos greatest creation and Nebula had to agree with that.

 

* * *

 

_Present. Titan._

  


Of course he killed her. Of course. Nebula just always thought that she would meet that end first. She was too late, far too late and now half of the universe is gone and here she is stranded on this dust ridden planet where she was raised and all she can think to herself is _“why did I survive?”_

 

She looks over at the man on the ground, his arm close to his chest as tears fall down his face, creating clear marks as they run through the dirt and ash on his cheeks.

 

She wonders for a moment if she ever looked like that, or even if she still does. Human features trapped with pieces of metal. The armor that protected him is half gone, wires sticking out in various places. She doesn’t understand why he would want to be a machine, to be gears and sparks when he could just be flesh and bone. As she continues to look at him, and the ash of his friends still floating up into the space around him she knows that he wears the armor because of creatures like Thanos. Because there are things out in the world that even their machine parts can’t stop. Nebula looks down at her arm, out of place. She pops it back into the socket and takes a deep breath she feels like for the first time in years.

 

* * *

 

Tony clutches his arm close to his chest, his knees pulled up close to him. It’s not stopping the pain that's shooting through his body, or the panic swirling it’s way through him. He holds his hand so tight that his fingers start to lose their feeling. Tony presses his hand against his face, the had that was holding Peter, holding him to this violent red planet, holding him together. Trying to keep him in place, from turning to ash, to dust and particles to go up into the atmosphere. The same way the others did, the same way Doctor Strange did, after handing over the infinity stone.

 

_“It was the only way.”_

 

Possibilities. Tony runs them through his head. It’s statistics to him, strategic. He has been preparing for this outcome for the past six years. There should have been a different way. Fourteen million, this couldn't have been the only one. The one that left him here on this planet, without any hope, without anything at all.

 

It can’t have been. Not this, not this terrible future that Tony has been fighting so hard against. Once the word futurist would have made him proud, now Tony sits with a shattered suit, broken bones, and a heart ready to burst. He can’t even tell if he’s breathing right, if his chest is inhaling and exhaling. All the tech in the world couldn’t save them. For everything he had ever done, every moment that led him to this. The shield slamming into his chest seems like a distant and hazy memory compared to this.

  


“He should have gotten off the ship. He should have gotten off.” _I don’t know what went wrong._ He does know. He knows how it went wrong because if Peter was still here he would say that it went right and, _‘It’s ok Mr.Stark, we can just tell Aunt May that I was at Stark Tower when the aliens came and the cell towers were down. I’ll only be grounded for a week or two at most.’_ Except this isn’t like Berlin. This isn’t a few week grounding and some scratches. It’s not a few apologies and showing up at their apartment doorstep in Queens with his glasses pushed to the end of his nose and a smile on his lips as he tries to lessen Aunt May’s grounding on Peter.

 

He feels himself going catatonic. He thinks he must have an inflammation in his brain, that the left side of his temporal lobe is pushing against his skull and causing the newfound stillness in his body. Maybe it’s more than that, maybe when the moon was thrown against him it caused the bleeding then, and perhaps the past hour has been a hallucination brought on by the injury. As he thinks it he already knows that he is completely wrong, that what he is grasping for is some version of hope.

 

The parts left of his suit are shedding sparks with every one of his movements and for the first time since becoming Iron Man Tony thinks to himself that he should have died in that cave and fuck if everything happens for a reason then this cannot be it.

 

For as many times as he’s seen his friends hurt, Happy in the hospital, Pepper falling from his grasp, and Rhodey shooting to the ground, this is by far a magnitude than all of those instances combined.

 

Tony thinks that they probably haven’t survived. That in this version of reality that Thanos has created that Tony is the only one left. Left here on this planet, stuck in his worst nightmare and just like the energy that comes out of Wanda’s hands, how it turned Tony’s eyes a different color, all he can see is red.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all the kind words!!! working on this story is a challenge because now i have to balance out all of the characters before i can reunite my sons

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't written a fic since civil war. basically marvel needs to pay me for having to write fix it fics all the time for them.


End file.
